Make in India: Qualcomm launches Design in India initiative for budding Startups

Qualcomm today announced the launch of their New Design in India Challenge in New Delhi. The initiative from Qualcomm is in line with the Government's Make in India vision.

As a matter of fact the Design in India initiative was incepted during a talk between Narendra Modi and Dr Paul E. Jacobs, Qualcomm's Executive Chairman back in September 2015 at San Jose, USA. The main aim behind the initiative is to develop a hardware and product ecosystem in India under industries such as smartphones, tablets, healthcare, education, banking, IoT (Internet of Things), agriculture etc.

Interested companies and startup can register onto this program via the official website. The challenge is however open to only India based companies or startup with minimum one year of operation. They will be then required to showcase a product design in the field of smartphones, tablets, wearables, smart cities etc. The registrations for the Design in India challenge has started already from December 1st and will continue till February 29th, 2016.

Thereafter up to 10 shortlisted companies will be handpicked from the applicants and given a seed funding of $10,000 each to proceed with prototyping phase. Qualcomm further states that the companies will be incubated in their state-of-the art Qualcomm Innovation Lab for nearly six months. From there up to 3 companies with the most promising products will be selected by the eminent judges as winner and will be handed over $100,000 as recognition and encouragement for future efforts.

Furthermore Qualcomm will be setting up an Innovation Lab in Bangalore through an Indian subsidiary as a part of their Design in India initiative. It will provide technical and engineering support to Indian companies in their endeavor to develop innovative ideas onto products and hardware design.